Page 58 of Sweet Temptation
For a hot minute, I consider closing my eyes just to piss him off.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Lucky, I’ve been avoiding you. Cornering me at work isn’t cool.” Okay, that might not have been as satisfying as closing my eyes just to be defiant, but it was much more responsible, and I’m pretty sure that’s as good as it’s getting at the moment.
“Did you get my omelets?” Apparently, Lucky can’t take a hint though.
“I did,” I admit, already losing some of my edge. “I got them both.”
“And... How were they? I mean, I know they’re not as good as yours, but?—”
“I didn’t eat them.” And why does admitting that make me feel like a bitch? Why should I feel bad when he’s the one in the wrong? “But it looks like you’re getting better. Last night’s didn’t have any brown spots.”
Lucky takes a step closer, and the table behind me stops me from backing up. “I’m sorry, Lex. I thought...” He shakes his head like he’s searching for the right words, but I’m not sure the right words exist. “I thought if Linc was cool with us, maybe you’d be good with us too.”
He reaches out slowly, giving me time to stop him if I want, and cups my cheek. And my God, that one touch sears my skin like only Lucky ever has. “I shouldn’t have said anything to Linc. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
“Lucky, it wasn’t that you said anything to Linc. I told you what I had to give. I told you one night, and you accepted that. I was up front and honest with you about what I had to give, and the next day you completely ignored everything I had said. And you involved my brother.” My voice shakes with each word. As much from trying to control my tone—so Mae and anyone else on the other side of the doors doesn’t hear us arguing—as from hurt and anger with myself and with Lucky. “It was a mistake. We never should have spent the night together in the first place.”
Lucky bends his knees and lowers his face to mine. Anger replacing the hurt that was shining in his eyes a minute ago. “We are not a mistake, Alexis. We never were. My only mistake was wasting years not going after what I wanted.”
“Keep your voice down,” I snap and back away as I look at the door to see if Mae heard him. “I’m not doing this here while I’m at work.”
He refuses to give me the space I should desperately want and wipes the sugar from my face, dragging his thumb slowly over my cheek. “Well, you don’t want to do it at home either, and we need to have this conversation. So you tell me where and when, and I’ll be there.”
“Hey, Lex—” Mom’s voice cuts off as she walks into the kitchen and stops.
Shit.
“Umm... I can just—” She points to the door. “I’ll just wait for you in the—out there. I’ll wait out there.”
“Thank you very much for what is now going to be the most uncomfortable doctor’s appointment of my life,” I growl, pushing out of his hold, and finish cleaning up the supplies I was putting away when he interrupted.
“What doctor? What’s wrong?”
Trying to ignore the concern in his voice isn’t easy as I straighten up the kitchen and grab my purse, and when I turn around, the look in his eyes almost guts me. “I’m fine,” I tell him softly. “It’s a routine checkup. Go home, Lucky.”
“Lex . . .”
I shake my head. “I’ve got to go.”
And somehow, it hurts even worse to walk away today.
“Want to tell me what that was about?” my mother asks as we head into the city for my appointment. I promised her she could come with me to my appointment and then we’d do dinner, just the two of us. I might be regretting that promise right about now.
“Not really,” I admit and look away.
“It looked serious,” she pushes, and I wonder how long it would take me to walk to UPenn Hospital. “It also looked...intimate.”
“Mom—”
“Alexis. We’ve got thirty minutes with traffic. You might as well tell me because I’m not going to drop it.”
She won’t either. She could make pestering an Olympic sport.
I try to come up with a way to talk about this without talking about this but struggle. “Lucky is upset because he’s not getting what he wants, and I’m upset because he’s not respecting what I want.”
Mom’s eyes look bigger than my fondant owl’s were earlier, so I say, “Oh my God, no. He respectedthosewishes.”
“Okay.” She takes a few deep breaths. “You’re going to have to do a little better than that, dear.”
